INTO THE ELECTRIC CASTLE

"Into the Electric Castle" is a lot more accomplished than 'The Human Equation', and the overall instrumental and vocal quality is better on this album. Although the concept behind "Into the Electric Castle" once again is quite a cheesy and science-fiction I find it is better than The 'Human Equation concept.' The concept reminds me of something from Star Trek, which I am very familiar with. Just so you know the idea is that a person is taken from each period of history and placed within the world of the "Electric Castle", where they must find the key to inner salvation. There is an Egyptian, Roman, Barbarian, Highlander, Indian, Hippie, Knight and a man from the future. Coincidently Fish plays the role of the Highlander, and he does a fantastic job.

The music to "Into the Electric Castle" is heavily laden with synthesizers and guitars, and each song has a theme to it, for example "Amazing flight" is a very rock-sounding song and The Hippie and Barbarian are the main characters for the song. "Time-beyond time" is about the future man and so on. This is a good feature about "Into the Electric Castle" as it makes for an interesting listen. Another impressive feature of all Ayreon albums is that Arjen uses original synthesizers which give everything a very vintage sound. There is some of every style in this album, blues, rock, folk, prog you name it!

The female vocalists on "Into the Electric Castle" are very good, particularly Anneke van Giersbergen whose voice is crystal clear in all the songs she sings. Fish also does very well hear and it is very good to see him sing in a hardy Scottish accent. The first half of "Into the Electric Castle" is very good; on the four star level but the quality of music drops a tiny bit on the second disc and the music gets heavier.

"Into the Electric Castle" is a very good, science -fiction album and it overall an interesting and enjoyable album. It is the best of Ayreon's albums I own. I would recommend "Into the Electric Castle" to prog metal fans.